THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF
[Spoilers]
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970) *1/2 out of ***** - C: Roger Moore.
A conservative British businessman (Moore) while driving home from work suddenly starts to drive recklessly and moments later crashes his car in a near fatal accident. While in the emergency room, he dies, but then is quickly brought back to life. After he becomes well again, he returns to his normal life. However, he slowly starts to discover that he sometimes seems to be in two places at once, as people greet him and mention recent events to him which he cannot recall taking part in. Is there a double of himself running around London? Or is he going insane?
Well, it's never very clear, and that's the film's major flaw. For 70 minutes of the film, Moore's character just keeps wandering around hearing about how he is supposedly doing all these wild things, and he never does anything to investigate. He could very easily have changed his daily routine just slightly, in order to prove that he wasn't at a certain place at a certain time. He even has witnesses who can back him up and explain where he was at times in question. But he just keeps wandering around.
Maybe the American version of this film has been cut, which would certainly explain the ending, or lack of one. Moore finally confronts his double, which is explained that the double is reflective of his wild side, the side of his personality which he has repressed all his life and now it wants to party. Or something like that. So, for some reason, the two Roger Moore's jump into their cars and chase each other. During the chase, the "good" Roger Moore starts to hallucinate some really weird stuff, and then drives his car into a lake. The "evil" Roger Moore stops to watch, and as the "good" Roger Moore dies, the "evil" Roger Moore doubles over in pain. Then the end credits roll. What?! I don't get it.
The film has a good story, but its executed with such stupidity and bad logic that it quickly grows tiresome. It could be decently remade today, perhaps as a TV movie or even possibly as an "X-Files" episode. With a smart writer, this could have been one creepy, entertaining flick. But as it stands, it's just ridiculous.
-- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, box office reports, film related links, and reader's polls and reviews.
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